Pages

12 August 2010

Kelly Walsh

Kelly Walsh is the Director of Institutional Information and Technology at The College of Westchester in White Plains, NY. He keeps a blog called EmergingEdTech (or Emerging Internet Technologies for Education) and recently published one of my comments as the basis of his blog post. Walsh believes that:

"the possibilities for the use of current and emerging internet technologies in the education field are limitless, and there is so much potential to tap into. These tools can help educators and administrators engage students, improve learning outcomes, and enhance administrative productivity."

According to Walsh's EDUCAUSE biography (also available on his blog), he has been in the information technology field for over 20 years. Says Walsh, "I have been an avid user of Internet technologies for many of those years. In 2008 I began working for an institution of higher education, where I focused increasing attention on instructional uses of current and emerging Internet technologies. There is so much that can be done to engage students with these evolving technologies. I also feel strongly that educators should strive to be aware of these technologies, and to provide students with insight into them."

The class facebook group that I discussed on Walsh's blog was the launching point for my research in India, and my ideas for a definite project generally linger around this sort of classroom experience. However, I spoke with Ashley today, an employee for BYU's International Study Programs, and she suggested that I conduct research unique to the Tibetan culture--she said that an experiment that could be conducted here just as well as it could in India is not the best vehicle for cultural immersion, which is the ultimate goal of field studies. Ashley suggested that I think about the differences in communication between Tibetan culture and mine and the way that they are manifest in new media. So, how do Tibetans in India communicate differently than I do, anyway? As I've exchanged a few emails with my Tibetan facebook contacts it seems that the differences are no more than the difference between the way I communicate and the way my friends do. Ashley's point is well taken--I must make my research specific to the culture in which I will be living for 90 days.

1 comment:

Hi Kristen! Thanks so much for featuring me and my work on EmergingEdTech.com here on your blog! I'm flattered! My post about your work with Facebook was quite popular - 560 viewers have read your article since it went up just the other day (average time on the page was over 3 minutes - so they were really reading it!). It's a real interesting topic and you wrote eloquently about it! I look forward to hearing more from you in the future - good luck with the project you are working on.